When DS was 6 weeks old he had an inguinal hernia; we went into hospital but it took about 36 hrs to diagnose. By the time the hernia was corrected his right testicle was very swollen (constricted blood supply) and now, 6 weeks later at his check up, the consultant's fairly certain that it will be useless in the future. Of course he still has one, but my concerns are these -
- What if something happens to the other one? He could be left sterile... Obviously that's why you have two, but it's not good to be left with one straight away...
- I'm furious with the hospital becuase they took so long to diagnose the problem - I have a suspicion that they screwed up and they're jumpy about it. If they'd caught it earlier, I don't think he'd have had this complication.
Anyone out there who can comment on these things?
For info, here's the timeline of what happened and a bit of medical jargon picked up from hospital:
Thurs a.m. - DS starts vomiting feeds. Also listless, miserable and not keen on feeding. 2nd vomit is bright yellow and copious, so go to GP. She advises to keep an eye.
Thurs pm - DS still not interested in food, what he does have doesn't stay down for long. Back to GP, who refers us to hospital. Admitted that evening. They're not sure what it is - suspect virus, reflux or pyloric stenosis (where muscle at bottom of stomach slowly closes so food eventually has nowhere to go). They say they'll monitor for 24 hrs.
Fri am - Paed consultant takes a look (briefly) and says they'll continue to monitor for another 24 hrs. They still think it's pyloric stenosis, although by this time DS doesn't fit all the symptoms - for instance, babies with that tend to be hungry all the time - he isn't, he just wants to sleep.
Fri pm - DH and I are increasingly anxious to get someone to take a more thorough look at DS. By this time he hasn't kept anything down since the previous morning and is looking pretty grey; we're very worried. We ask a senior nurse whether someone can't take a look, do some tests or something (both X ray and ultrasound have been mentioned but not done at this point). She agrees and goes off to find a surgical registrar but the person she wants gets called off to a more urgent case instead.
Fri night - DS still not keeping anything down so has a tube down his nose. We try EBM but he vomits that so they resort to a glucose drip. A surgeon does see him (junior night staff) and thinks it's pyloric stenosis. They recommend an ultrasound first thing in the morning to confirm.
Sat am - Paed consultant again, same as Friday morning - no sign of ultrasound or other tests but says he'll get surgeon to take a look.
Sat late am - surgical registrar turns up, strips DS naked (first person to do this, the others concentrated on palpating his abdomen but didn't remove nappy) and spots swollen testicle. I hadn't seen it either when changing nappy so not sure how long it had taken to come up. Anyway, it's red, angry and about twice the size it should be. She immediately suspects a hernia and whips him off for an ultrasound.
Sat pm - ultrasound confirms hernia. DS is given morphine while same registrar manually corrects hernia from the outside. Within an hour or so he returns to his normal self, plus some unbelievable nappies (hernia had blocked intestines so as well as being unable to digest food, he couldn't pass a bowel movement either). She advises they will wait 2 days for swelling to go down and then operate. What's happened is that a bit of bowel has dropped down the tube left by the descending testes, swelled up and as well as affecting digestive system has also cut off blood supply to that testicle.
Tues pm - they operate (after starving poor DS for 9 hours -was supposed to be 4 but an emergency case went into theatre before him so he had to wait). Operation goes fine and DS is a happy chappy when he leaves hospital the next day. However testicle remains hard and small.
6 weeks later - although that testicle has softened a bit, it's still about half the size of the other and higher up. Consultant says it's likely it won't function in later life, though they want to see him in a year. Says he's only seen 2 of these in 10 years - very rare for hernia not to be diagnosed like this/ not to show externally until testicle swells up.
So - should they have run an ultrasound earlier than they did? Various people told me that both pyloric stenosis and a hernia can be identified with ultrasound, and as far as I'm aware, ultrasound, unlike Xray, has no harmful effects - so why didn't they do it? Why did they leave a 6 week old baby for two days when he hadn't passed a bowel movement and hand't eaten? They said they prefer to be non-invasive but surely that's just taking it to extremes? The consultant said at his check up today that to save the testicle, blood supply would have had to be restored within 4-6 hours. Not sure how long it took for the hernia to cut off the blood to the testicle but it wasn't swollen on the Thursday or Friday, so if they'd run tests on Friday, would we have been able to save it?
And can anyone advise what to do from here? Is it worth suing? Just really angry to be honest...